


The Continental Shelf

by ThreeSidedOrchid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-27
Updated: 2011-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:17:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeSidedOrchid/pseuds/ThreeSidedOrchid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus didn’t realize how deep he would go when he agreed to Potter’s request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Continental Shelf

Harry curls away from him. Severus moves too; sliding one hand over to rest against Harry’s stomach. It is the only touch he dares in this more intimate post-coital world. Silence rears up between them, heavy and dark as a leviathan, and Severus knows something is wrong.

‘I want a child,’ Potter had said, all those months ago. To his ‘Why me?’ Potter offered words like intelligence and honor, which Severus had scoffed at before Potter’s ‘I’ll pay you’ rendered reason irrelevant.

A sigh draws him out of memory to the tense line of Harry’s back. ‘It will happen,’ he wants to say, but curses himself for a fool instead.

“I went to St. Mungo’s today.”

Severus can feel Harry trying to go on in the weighty breaths that rise and drop beneath his hand.

“I should have told you, before,” he finishes, giving up on the words between. “But I wanted…” his hand covers Severus’, holding him there.

“There are other options.”

“Adoption, I--”

“Or someone else might bear the child.” Severus closes his eyes against the feeling that he has gone too deep, too fast. He should explain he meant someone else, anyone else, but the lie will not come.

The bed shifts. Severus leaves his hand in place, letting it caress smooth skin as Harry turns. Fingers, tentative, brush his jaw, and Severus opens his eyes.

“You would do that?”

“For a sufficient sum.” For you, he does not say, but something in Harry’s eyes tells him he has heard the unspoken cost.

“Thank you,” Harry whispers, the way some say I love you. “Thank you, thank you.” He kisses Severus, curling against him.

Severus draws him closer and breathes, deep and unladen, as if he has not breathed in a very long time.


End file.
